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A bottle a day probably won’t keep the doctor at bay.
Americans are drinking less than ever, with just 54% of US adults saying they consume alcohol, according to recent Gallup polling, marking a record low for the second year in a row.
But for those who do indulge, a new study has a sobering warning: It may take far less booze than you’d think to raise your odds of dying from nine different types of cancer.
Researchers analyzed more than three decades of US data from the Global Burden of Disease Study, which tracks the toll of hundreds of risk factors, diseases and conditions across more than 200 countries and territories.
They found that alcohol-attributable cancer deaths in the US more than doubled between 1990 and 2023, soaring from 11,361 to 23,126 a year.
Alarmingly, just one drink a day appeared to be enough to increase the risk of becoming one of those statistics.
The federal government considers one standard drink to be 12 fluid ounces of regular beer, 5 fluid ounces of table wine or 1.5 fluid ounces of distilled spirits such as gin, rum, tequila, vodka or whiskey.
That daily drink could spell trouble for more than one part of the body. Researchers linked alcohol to deaths from breast, prostate, colon, rectal, stomach, pancreatic and liver cancers, as well as cancers of the head and neck.
The analysis found that older adults bore the brunt of alcohol-attributable cancer deaths over the 33-year period, with people 55 and older facing higher rates than those ages 20 to 54. Overall, men fared worse than women.
The study also showed that alcohol-related deaths from colorectal and esophageal cancers were climbing faster than cancer deaths as a whole.
Heavy drinking is particularly dangerous when it comes to esophageal cancer, with more than three drinks a day linked to at least four times the risk seen in non-drinkers.
Previous research has also tied heavier drinking in early adulthood and two or more drinks a day in middle age to a higher risk of developing colorectal cancer later in life. The link has been seen in younger adults, too, with alcohol consistently tied to early-onset colorectal cancer.
Once largely considered a disease of older people, colon and rectal cancers are now rising rapidly among younger Americans. One in five diagnoses today is in someone under 55, and many cases are caught only after the cancer has reached a more advanced stage.
The disease is now the leading cause of cancer death among Americans under 50, with rates climbing about 1% a year since 2004.
The trend is strikingly different for other major cancers, which have been claiming fewer young lives in recent years, according to the American Cancer Society.
As research continues to shed light on the risks of drinking, more Americans appear to be taking notice.
Gallup found that 51% of US adults now believe having one or two alcoholic drinks a day is bad for their health.
That’s just shy of last year’s record-high 53% and marks only the second time since Gallup first asked the question in 2001 that a majority has held that view.
Twenty-five years ago, just 27% considered moderate drinking bad for their health, while 22% said it was good for you and 46% said it made no difference.
Today, just 40% of Americans believe moderate drinking has no impact on their health, while only 6% think it’s actually a boon for the body.
Among those who drink, the average American consumes just 3.2 drinks a week in 2026.
Excluding non-melanoma skin cancers, the American Cancer Society estimates that 2.1 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed in the US this year.
The group is expecting more than 626,000 people will die from the disease, the equivalent of about 1,700 deaths per day.
